Deaf Awareness

Sign Language is a visual and gestural language, which uses manual communication and body language to convey meaning. This can involve simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts.

 

Common misconception is that all sign languages are the same worldwide or that sign language is international. Aside from the pidgin International Sign, each country generally has its own, native sign language, and some have more than one, though sign languages may share similarities to each other, whether in the same country or another one.

 

Singapore does not currently have its official sign language, although it has its local sign language, called Singapore Sign Language or shortly known as SgSL. The other sign languages incorporated in SgSL are Shanghainese Sign Language, American Sign Language (ASL), Signing Exact English 2 (SEE2), Pidgin Signed English (PSE) and localised sign vocabulary made by Deaf Singapore.

 

Let's learn from our basic sign language videos below!